Support for a scalable and highly available (HA) service platform

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11799722-B2
Application number	US-202217844451-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 20, 2022
Priority date	Mar 28, 2019
Publication date	Oct 24, 2023
Grant date	Oct 24, 2023

Abstract

Supporting a scalable and Highly Available (HA) service platform. The service platform may be a virtual Cable Modem Termination System (vCMTS), a Passive Optical Network (PON), or a Broadband Network Gateway (BNG). A software component receives, from the service platform, an update about a particular unit of equipment, such as a cable modem (CM), Optical Network Unit (ONU)/Optical Network Terminal (ONT), or customer premises equipment (CPE). In response to receiving the update, the software component provides, to at least one edge router, route data for the particular unit of equipment. The route data informs the edge router of a next hop network address for a network address of the unit of equipment. The edge router is not and need not be provided with either (a) any Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) data for the particular unit of equipment and (b) any Neighbor Discovery (ND) data for the particular unit of equipment.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. One or more non-transitory computer-readable storage mediums that store one or more sequences for supporting a scalable and Highly Available (HA) service platform, which when executed by one or more processors, cause:
a software component receiving, from the service platform, an update about a particular unit of equipment, wherein the particular unit of equipment is a cable modem (CM), Optical Network Unit (ONU)/Optical Network Terminal (ONT), or customer premises equipment (CPE); and wherein the service platform is a virtual Cable Modem Termination System (vCMTS), a Passive Optical Network (PON), or a Broadband Network Gateway (BNG); and
in response to receiving the update, the software component providing, to at least one edge router, route data for the particular unit of equipment,
wherein the route data informs the at least one edge router of a next hop network address for a network address of the particular unit of equipment,
and wherein the at least one edge router is (a) not provided any Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) data for the particular unit of equipment and (b) not provided any Neighbor Discovery (ND) data for the particular unit of equipment.

2. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage mediums of claim 1 , wherein the software component executes upon a physical device which is also executing software implementing other functions of the service platform.

3. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage mediums of claim 1 , wherein the software component executes upon a different physical device than a one or more other physical devices which execute software implementing functions of the service platform.

4. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage mediums of claim 1 , wherein the software component receives the update from the service platform via a remote procedure call (RPC).

5. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage mediums of claim 1 , wherein the update results from the particular unit of equipment becoming online or going offline.

6. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage mediums of claim 1 , wherein the software component provides the route data to the one or more edge routers via Border Gateway Protocol (BGP).

7. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage mediums of claim 1 , wherein the software component providing, to at least one edge router, route date for the particular unit of equipment comprises:
the software component notifying a first edge router of the route data for the particular unit of equipment; and
the software component instructing a second edge router to discard previously.

8. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage mediums of claim 1 , wherein each of the at least one router is a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) router.

9. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage mediums of claim 1 , wherein said software component provides all route data to all edge routers in said service platform, and wherein said all edge routers in said service platform perform no inspection of Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) packets to ascertain any route data.

10. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage mediums of claim 1 , wherein within said service platform, said ARP data and said ND is not exchanged between a core of said service platform and any edge router in said service platform in response to the software component providing said route data to said at least one edge router.

11. An apparatus for supporting a scalable and Highly Available (HA) service platform, comprising:
one or more processors; and
one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage mediums storing one or more sequences of instructions, which when executed by the one or more processors, cause:
a software component receiving, from the service platform, an update about a particular unit of equipment, wherein the particular unit of equipment is a cable modem (CM), Optical Network Unit (ONU)/Optical Network Terminal (ONT), or customer premises equipment (CPE), and wherein the service platform is a virtual Cable Modem Termination System (vCMTS), a Passive Optical Network (PON), or a Broadband Network Gateway (BNG); and
in response to receiving the update, the software component providing, to at least one edge router, route data for the particular unit of equipment,
wherein the route data informs the at least one edge router of a next hop network address for a network address of the particular unit of equipment,
and wherein the at least one edge router is (a) not provided any Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) data for the particular unit of equipment and (b) not provided any Neighbor Discovery (ND) data for the particular unit of equipment.

12. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the software component executes upon a physical device which is also executing software implementing other functions of the service platform.

13. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the software component executes upon a different physical device than a one or more other physical devices which execute software implementing functions of the service platform.

14. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the software component receives the update from the service platform via a remote procedure call (RPC).

15. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the update results from the particular unit of equipment becoming online or going offline.

16. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the software component provides the route data to the one or more edge routers via Border Gateway Protocol (BGP).

17. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the software component providing, to at least one edge router, route date for the particular unit of equipment comprises:
the software component notifying a first edge router of the route data for the particular unit of equipment; and
the software component instructing a second edge router to discard previously.

18. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein each of the at least one router is a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) router.

19. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein said software component provides all route data to all edge routers in said service platform, and wherein said all edge routers in said service platform perform no inspection of Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) packets to ascertain any route data.

20. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein within said service platform, said ARP data and said ND is not exchanged between a core of said service platform and any edge router in said service platform in response to the software component providing said route data to said at least one edge router.

21. A method for supporting a scalable and Highly Available (HA) service platform, comprising:
a software component receiving, from the service platform, an update about a particular unit of equipment, wherein the particular unit of equipment is a cable modem (CM), Optical Network Unit (ONU)/Optical Network Terminal (ONT), or customer premises equipment (CPE), and wherein the service platform is a virtual Cable Modem Termination System (vCMTS), a Passive Optical Network (PON), or a Broadband Network Gateway (BNG); and
in response to receiving the update, the software component providing, to at least one edge router, route data for the particular unit of equipment,
wherein the route data informs the at least one edge router of a next hop network address for a network address of the particular unit of equipment,
and wherein the at lea

Assignees

• Harmonic Inc

Inventors

• Leventer Amir
• Ginsburg Daniel
• Gaydos Robert
• Ben-Natan Nimrod

Classifications

• H04L41/0816 Primary

  the condition being an adaptation, e.g. in response to network events · CPC title

• H04L45/74 Primary

  Address processing for routing · CPC title

• H04L67/133

  Protocols for remote procedure calls [RPC] · CPC title

• H04L41/082

  the condition being updates or upgrades of network functionality · CPC title

• H04L67/10

  in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network (software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46) · CPC title